I have been wasting my
time with this young man. You are a trifle severe upon me. You may find,
and before long, that I am your best friend."

She laughed delightfully.

"Dear Mr. Pritchard," she exclaimed, "it is a strange thought, that! If
only I dared hope that some day it might come true!"

"More unlikely things, madam, are happening every hour," the detective
remarked. "The world--our little corner of it, at any rate--is full
of anomalies. There might even come a time to any one of us three when
liberty was more dangerous than the prison cell itself."

He nodded carelessly to Tavernake, and with a bow to Elizabeth turned
and left the room. Elizabeth remained as though turned to stone, looking
after him as he descended the stairs.

"The man is a fool!" Tavernake cried, roughly.

Elizabeth shook her head and sighed.

"He is something far more ineffective," she said. "He is just a little
too clever."

CHAPTER, XV. GENERAL DISCONTENT

Elizabeth did not at once rejoin her friends. Instead, she sank on to
the low settee close to where she had been standing, and drew Tavernake
down to her side. She waved her hand across at the others, who were
calling for her.

"In a moment, dear people," she said.

Then she leaned back among the cushions and laughed at her companion.

"Tell me, Mr. Tavernake," she asked, "don't you feel that you have
stepped into a sort of modern Arabian Nights?"

"Why?"

"Oh, I know Mr. Pritchard's weakness," she continued. "He loves to throw
a glamour around everything he says or does. Because he honors me by
interesting himself in my concerns, he has probably told you all sorts
of wonderful things about me and my friends. A very ingenious romancer,
Mr. Pritchard, you know. Confess, now, didn't he tell you some stories
about us?"

She might have spared herself the trouble of beating about the bush.
There was no hesitation about Tavernake.

"He said that your friends were every one of them criminals," Tavernake
declared, "and he admitted that he was working hard at the present
moment to discover that you were one, too."

She laughed softly but heartily.

"I wonder what was his object," she remarked, "in taking you into his
confidence."

"He happened to know," Tavernake explained, "that I was intimate with
your sister. He wanted me to ask Beatrice a certain question."

Elizabeth laughed no more. She looked steadfastly into his eyes.

"And that question?"

"He wanted